Fagaceae Quercus rubra L.

Northern Red Oak

Potawatomi - Food, Porridge

Use documented by:
Smith, Huron H., 1933, Ethnobotany of the Forest Potawatomi Indians, Bulletin of the Public Museum of the City of Milwaukee 7:1-230, page 100

View all documented uses for Quercus rubra L.

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Scientific name: Quercus rubra L.
USDA symbol: QURUR (View details at USDA PLANTS site)
Common names: Northern Red Oak
Family: Fagaceae
Family (APG): Fagaceae
Native American Tribe: Potawatomi
Use category: Food
Use sub-category: Porridge
Notes: Dried, ground acorns used as a flour to make gruel. Hardwood ashes and water furnished the lye for soaking the acorns, to swell them and remove the tannic acid. A bark bag or reticule served to hold the acorns while they were washed through a series of hot and cold water to remove the lye. Then they were dried in the sun and became perfectly sweet and palatable. They were ground on depressions of rocks which served as a mortar with a stone pestle, to a flour, which was cooked as a gruel, sometimes called samp.

RECRD: 291 id: 32394

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